A lot of guys talking about this, and while I agree that keeping a GP on hand at home to monitor yourself is important, people are taking the telemedicine thing out of context.

I hear guys say they don't like talking to a guy over the phone, well end up at UCLA and you will be talking to a computer, not about testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) that has never been proven to be dangerous, but about fatal illnesses.

Once a patients symptoms are entered, VisualDx can help the doctor eliminate certain diagnoses and steer him toward the most likely ones, saving time and aggravation. Its freely available to doctors at UCLA and is already in use at 25 medical schools and 1,300 hospitals. Its a really powerful way to deliver my expertise through teleconsult in an organized way, Craft said.

They just started doing something like this at the VA hospital here. Most veterans doctors actually are a pain in the ass and dont really pay attention so they have our main doc, his boss, and an intern in the room. Hell we dont even leave the first floor now to see a doc. Good shit oak

With the VA u can refill ur scripts over the phone or through their automated website. Its a breeze. Also they have a medical advice line that u can call and talk to a nurse that will go over anything from ur bloodwork to putting in referrals to specialist

In my remarks I explored the six future forces that I think are making it more likely that telehealth will move more fully into the present. These include:

Income gap economics the fact that incomes have stagnated for 90% of the U.S. population and in fact have declined by many measures, means that a premium will be placed on getting services to people at a cheaper cost that current practices.

Health care requires it a startling new study of sources of health insurance for nonelderly Americans shows that since 2001 those with employer sponsored health insurance has declined from 70% of the population to 53%, while the uninsured have increased from 14% to 20%. When health care reform actually takes effect in 2014 the total insured will improve but I do not expect improvement in employee sponsored programs, in fact I expect the reverse. This all adds up to a system experiencing a fairly rapid devolution, and in the end it will have to change more radically that currently anticipated.

Age wave need and digital natives lead the well known age wave as the baby boomers pass through their sixties into their seventies in the coming two decades will increase demand for health care. This population will be more technically savvy and willing to use telehealth if available. At the same time the next generation of health care providers will be the first from the digital native generation, and they will be frustrated if sophisticated tools for telemedicine are not in use.

Tech acceleration from more immersive and 3D communication technology more widely available, to better tools for diagnosis and treatment, the tech revolution continues.

Quantized-self health revolution this is just becoming known. I related to story of Larry Smarr, currently featured in Technology Review, as an early adopter of increasingly available personalized tools for monitoring and communicating your own health status. As this becomes widely adopted, it dovetails perfectly with telemedicine.

4-P medicine the brainchild and mission of Dr. Leroy Hood and the Institute for Systems Biology, the 4 Ps stand for medicine becoming predictive, preventive, personalized, and participatory. As a concept the 4 Ps are becoming widely accepted as appropriate goals for the future of medicine. All of these themes reinforce the value of telemedicine.

Political restrictions state legislatures are increasingly interfering with telehealth, limiting the services they can provide, often for non-medical reasons.

Following my talk a third future force was emphasized in discussion, and it is obvious and perhaps the biggest of barriers. That is the way we pay for health care in the U.S., the reimbursement system. Since we defined health care as a profit centered enterprise, the incentives of providers is toward services that generate the highest return, while for payers (insurers) the incentives are to provide as little health care as possible. Both of these limit the applications of telemedicine, literally prohibiting telemedicine providers from doing many things.

I just don't see the benefits - as long as you need a doctors time what difference does remote communication make? ITs more expensive with this equipment, not cheaper. the model of a nurse doing almost all the medical work and a doc just writing scrips and signing off on stuff is already the model in use today. Telemedicine provides no benfits except in highly specialized areas where there are only a few doctors in the country treating a oarticular disease and you need to reach one and can't travel.

In the end its just a computer database that you use the internet to log into. Big deal. We already have that. What is special about what UCLA is doing? Nothing - just networking medicine - same as facebook.